


Complications

by voxmyriad



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Breakup Fic, But I had a bad mood and Spy had to suffer for it, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, I AM SORRY, I actually ship this like burning, It just kind of happened?, M/M, Now It's A Revenge Fic, Sort of resolved, The Sads, Who Knows What It Will Be Next, You can decide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 05:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2097924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxmyriad/pseuds/voxmyriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All inter-team relationships are problematic. Something had to be done. Of all the people to be unhappy about it, Spy did not expect Sniper to be one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I was having a terrible mood and took it out on Spy and I feel really bad but also not because of reasons.

"…there's no getting myself out of this one, is there?"

" _Non._ You are thoroughly outclassed as usual."

"I did not _say_ she wouldn't've been interested for the long-term. Only that a lady like that…blokes like you and me, we're not—"

"Stop now. There is no 'blokes like you and me'."

"She deserves someone who's there!"

The silence spread like a bomb. The Sniper could almost see the words in the air, glowing, accusing. If he could take the knife he was sharpening and slice them into nothingness, he would.

"Ah, I see," the Spy said at last. "And because I cannot be there for her every day, I do not deserve her."

"Mate, that's not—"

"That woman was a breath of Heaven." The Spy's hands were steady as he took out a cigarette and lit it and tucked case and lighter away again. "A breath that I could inhale so rarely, it was all the more precious. A long weekend once a month. Sometimes less often than that. But she was _there_. Even when I was here, in this stinking wood and concrete prison of a base, baking or freezing or exhausted and soaked to the bone. She was _out there_. Living her life. A reminder, when I was bleeding out into the mud, that something else existed."

"I don't—"

"Shut up! You're right! You don't! You _don't_ know what it is to have that, or to have it stolen, and to feel the absence so much more keenly than you ever expected!" The Spy's cigarette was crushed between his fingers now, little wisps of shredded tobacco tipping onto the floor even as it still burned. "Someone took her from me, and I could hear her son's whoops of joy from here. Do you know how many times he sent me through Respawn that day?"

The Sniper stared at the cherry, growing closer to the Spy's trembling fingers. "I don't."

"I do. Twenty three. I know because he counted them off. I heard his lecture from their Soldier later about his poor performance. It seemed he did nothing else that day but chase me. And do you know, by the end, I did not bother to fight him off? There seemed no point. It was why his mother had left me, after all. I spend my days murdering her youngest boy."

"That's not—Respawn makes—no one really dies!"

"Try telling that to a mother of eight who has already lost two sons overseas. One photograph of her youngest, motionless in the dirt with a knife in his back? That would have sufficed. But they were thorough." The Spy pulled a packet of photos, held together with a rubber band, out of his jacket, tossed them over. The knife clattered to the floor as the Sniper fumbled to catch them. It was a gruesome compendium of the deaths they all experienced every weekday between 9 am and 5 pm, all featuring the BLU Scout, all somehow capturing a RED in the background.

"How'd they _get_ these?" he murmured, sifting through the collection, fascinated in spite of himself. One with the Scout pinned to the wall with an arrow through his eye made him wince; that was his arrow. He remembered that kill. He'd felt satisfaction at the time. Had probably waved his hat at the kid.

A strangled oath made him look up just as the cherry touched the Spy's fingers. He dropped the mess of a cigarette and ground it out beneath his heel, much more vigorously than necessary. "As you can see, there was no other course of action open to her than to tell me, in no uncertain terms, what she thought of me, and of our future together." The cool disinterest was back in the Spy's voice. There was nothing else to be done, it said. Note the mistakes, catalogue, move on.

The Sniper had never liked that tone. "You can explain."

The Spy paused, halfway to lighting another cigarette, and looked up. " _Pardon?_ "

"Look, this—" The Sniper waved the photos. "This does not look good. I admit. But it's not the whole story."

"Be serious. I cannot break contract merely to placate my lady when she is in a snit."

"'S not a snit, though, is it?" The Spy did not answer. "Can't leave it at this."

"Can't I? It is done. No," the Spy held up a hand. "It is done. She is finished with me. I have come to terms with it."

That was enough of a lie that the Sniper was amazed the spook didn't go up in flames on the spot, but instead he just turned to go.

"She love you?"

The answer took several seconds. "Yes. And I love her. But she loves her son more." A shake of the red-masked head. "I cannot fault her for it. If she did not love him this much, she would not be the woman she is. So. It is done."

The Sniper had no words left, just listened to the fading footfalls as he stared at the high-quality full-color evidence of their workaday lives that had undone something real.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sniper goes overboard. It does not go unnoticed, and it is not welcome.

"C'mon, mongrel," Sniper whispered, glued to his scope as the barrel of his gun lifted in little erratic circles. "Just need half a tick—" The report echoed from the rocks, chased by the Scout's dying scream, and Sniper smiled grimly to himself as he ejected the round and slotted in a new one. "Fourteen. Ten more to go."

In the few minutes it would take for the BLU Scout to go through Respawn, Sniper looked over the rest of the field, took out their Medic and winged the Heavy he was attached to, then looked up at the quick thumping of footsteps on the wooden stairs. It couldn't be anyone but a Scout running that fast, probably skipping steps on the way, but his own had no reason to visit him up here.

"Kid wants a face-to-face, does he?" he muttered, setting the rifle aside and pulling out his kukri. A flash of blue passed into his line of sight and he slashed up and into a leg, mouth set in a firm line even as the Scout howled. "G'day," he said, kicked away the kid's baseball bat, set the blade against his neck. "And good night."

"Fuck, _wait!_ " The kid threw up bloodied hands and against his better judgment, Sniper paused. "What the fuck, man, you're all _over_ me today, the hell did I do to you!?"

"My headcount's down. Ten more—minimum—and you're home and dry, no worries."

" _Ten_ , but why—" The rest of the Scout's reply was lost in gurgling blood as he slit his throat, quick and neat, and used his shirt to wipe off the blade before it disappeared with the rest of him. Time to move, Sniper thought, but he kept an eye on his former perch after setting up shop elsewhere, and kill number sixteen happened when the Scout tried to revisit him.

After that, he didn't see the ankle-biter again, and ground his teeth in frustration as he left the field with only sixteen kills to the Scout's twenty-three kills on the RED Spy. No one knew about Sniper's little private vendetta, not even Spy, but it kept him silent all through the debriefing and into the next day's battle. He landed twelve more kills on the Scout that day—he looked like a pincushion by the end—but sixteen-plus-twelve over two days wasn't twenty-three in one day. It wasn't enough. It wouldn't teach a _lesson._

Some might question the logic in trying to teach someone a lesson without telling them about it first, but Sniper didn't bother himself with those kinds of thoughts. A lesson was going to be taught. Maybe eventually something would kick into gear inside the BLU's head, right before Sniper took it off again.

Only ten kills that day. The Scout was getting even twitchier than normal, changing his strategy to hide instead of sprinting across the open field like he used to. Sniper didn't land any other kills and he heard about it that night, from both Soldier and Engineer, who made sure Sniper knew about the number of times the BLU's Spy had sapped his buildings and backstabbed him when Sniper had set himself up with a clear view of his sentry nests.

It was unprofessional, Sniper knew, and he owed Truckie an apology. He needed to provide the support for his team that he'd been hired to do. A private rivalry was one thing, but when it impacted his professionalism he knew it was time to lay it to rest.

He did so. For the rest of the week, and through that weekend. Until Monday morning, when he saw the BLU Scout corner his Spy (RED's Spy. RED's. Not his.) and shoot him in the knee before switching to his bat. He watched for a moment, waiting for the silver sheen of the Ambassador to appear and point under the Scout's guard, he was leaving himself wide open, c'mon spook, but nothing happened. When the Scout's headless body collapsed, Sniper almost didn't realize it had been his own shot that had taken him out.

Spy looked up and spotted him, hanging back in the shadows, and even from that distance Sniper could see his brow furrow, but he merely flicked a hand in a casual thank-you wave. Sniper tugged at the brim of his hat in answer.

The Scout went down the next six times he tried to sneak by, and he was tracking a seventh before he felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift. Too late to go for his kukri, he realized as smoke wafted past him. No Razorback, he hadn't thought to grab it on his way out the door. He was dead. Still breathing was only a detail.

"Target practice again this week, Bushman?"

"Somethin' like that."

"Well done. You have him nearly silent in the evenings, a feat I would have believed beyond the skill of any man. But as grateful as I am for the newfound peace…" The knife slipped between his ribs, hurt as much and as little as it ever did, and Sniper opened his eyes in Respawn.

"You too, eh?" came Engineer's voice from the side. Sniper sat up, wincing against the Respawn headache, rolling his shoulders to rid himself of the phantom pain between his shoulder blades.

"Spy," he said shortly.

"Not surprised. Think he's feelin' a little left out."

"What?"

"You ain't so much as winged him in three days, Slim. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's wondering if he did somethin' to offend you. I _know_ their Scout's wonderin' about that." The inquisitive rise of brows showed that the members of BLU weren't the only ones curious about why the Sniper's bullets were almost exclusively chasing down the Scout these days.

Sniper put his hat back on, picked up his rifle, reloaded. "Next time the snake slithers by, tell him he can crawl up to visit me anytime he likes," he said, pulling on the Razorback for good measure, and walked toward the door.

"I am tryin' my level best to respect whatever you've got goin' on," Engineer said after him, in that loud and firm voice that meant listening up was the best course of action. Sniper didn't turn, but he stopped. "That Spy's not the only one curious about what's happened. D'you know, I had an honest-to-God _conversation_ with the spook today? Stopped by my dispenser disguised as you, wasn't even playin' pretend. Think he was testin' you to see if you'd notice. Seein' as how I'm here and so are you, clearly you did not." Muffled clanking behind Sniper was Engineer repacking his tool chest and hefting it onto a shoulder. "You want to talk, you know where to find me," he said as he walked past Sniper and back onto the field.

Sniper spent the next two hours defending Truckie's sentries. He felt as if he was trying to prove a point without knowing who he was proving it to, but winging the BLU Spy in the shoulder and watching as the sentries mowed him down was as satisfying as ever. Mean-spirited, but satisfying. That evening he avoided the rest of the team and went straight back to his van, and showed up the next morning just minutes before the alarms.

"Wasn't sure you were gonna show," Engineer said as he finished double-checking his tools, then held up his hands at the glare he got in answer. "No offense meant, Stretch. You were just scarcer this morning than usual, is all. Glad to see you."

"Yo, Snipes! You gonna start remembering the _rest_ of those BLUs today, or do I gotta keep dodging?"

"Keep dodging what?"

"Keep dodging _their_ freakin' Sniper!" Scout rolled his eyes so hard that Sniper was surprised he didn't pull a muscle. "He's gunnin' for me almost as hard as you're gunnin' for their Scout, and it's pissin' me off! You didn't notice or what?"

Sniper carefully did not look at Engineer. "Been looking elsewhere," he said shortly.

"What, Mister I-See-Everything?"

"Leetle Scout has point," Heavy said, smoothing away a smudge on the barrel of his gun. "Sniper has dozens of Scout heads now. Is enough, yes?"

_No,_ Sniper wanted to shout. _No, it isn't enough. Don't you know **why**? Don't you know what the company **did** to our Spy, what that brat did to him?_

He was suddenly acutely aware of the eyes on the back of his neck. RED or BLU, it didn't matter which Spy was staring at him, he could always tell. Consciously, he shrugged his shoulders and settled the Razorback more comfortably against his back. "Maybe." No. "Yeah."

He took down the BLU Scout twice within the first half hour. It was more than an instinct now. It had become something akin to a compulsion. Yes, he had an obligation to attempt a takedown of any BLU that crossed his field of vision, but in the past, he had sometimes let the Scout race by because he knew the kid would run right into Truckie's sentries, or Solly had just gone past and had a rocket ready for him, or Demo's sticky bomb trap was freshly laid. The rest of his team had plenty of ways to kill Scouts.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Sniper swore as he nearly fumbled his rifle. "Didn't hear you come up," he said, turning his head just enough to confirm the red suit. He didn't need to see the masked face to know how angry the RED Spy was.

"Yes, you are very inattentive to many things these days. One would think, if you were not such a _professional_ , that you were highly distracted."

"I—" Sniper went silent as he caught another flash of blue. On automatic, his hands slotted in another round and he took aim.

"Do _not_ fire that shot, Sniper. _Mon Dieu,_ let the boy keep his head for fifteen minutes! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _me?_ " The shot was forgotten as Sniper lurched to his feet, his back to the window. "I've watched him corner you. You're not fightin' back! I could ask what's wrong with _you._ "

"You already know, I told—" Spy's eyes widened, then narrowed in chilly realization. "You are doing this for _me._ "

"Well, you're not doing it. Someone has to."

"Someone does not 'have to' do anything! You think the best way to handle this is to kill my lady's son _more often?_ I did not reveal that to you only to have you take it and twist it into an excuse to go on a killing spree!"

"I don't go on killing sprees, I'm—"

"A professional?" Spy sneered. Sniper was silent. "What kind of professional throws everything else aside and focuses on killing one person over and over? There is a word for that kind of thing and it is not 'professional'."

"Look, I—"

There was a knife at his throat. What? Sniper blinked, reached out to tap Spy's arm experimentally. "Yes," Spy said, like ice and stone, "it is me. I can do nothing now, we are on the clock, but if you do not cease this idiotic _vendetta_ and start doing your job, I will take the penalty that comes with friendly fire."

The knife was flicked closed in the blink of an eye. "My problems are not yours to solve." Spy dropped his spent cigarette on the floor and cloaked.

The next time the BLU Scout scuttled across his field of vision, Sniper shot him in the leg and watched as his Medic sprinted up. He waited until the Scout was up on his feet again, then shot the Medic and let the kid go.

He'd have to think of something else. Luckily he had one or two ideas.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sniper recruits outside help to his cause. It might not be his best idea.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

A cloud of smoke accompanied the BLU Spy's silent laugh. "There must be a reason you invited me here. We both know it is not simply to enjoy my company anymore."

The familiar flare of annoyance came back far too easily. "Don't be—" Sniper bit back the angry retort, pressing his lips into a thin line. "All right, yeah. I do want your help."

"Ah, there it is."

"'S not the only reason—"

"Do not. Just tell me what it is you want."

Sniper reflected for a silent, seething moment that it seemed to be a trait of all Spies that they rarely let him finish his thoughts. He pulled out the packet of photos, much handled and now tied together with twine, and held them in front of Spy without comment.

"Hm?" Spy parked the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and undid the twine. "Ah. I see. Well. This explains several things." Sniper watched the gloved hands as he flicked through the photos. Sniper had been through them often enough that he had them memorized. That in itself probably wasn't so healthy, he thought.

After going through the packet, Spy neatly retied the twine and set them aside. "Well?"

"Our Spy, RED's, he and his lady—"

"If you think for a moment that I am unaware that he and our Scout's mother have parted ways, you underestimate Scout's enthusiasm at this development." Spy finished his cigarette and it joined several others in an empty glass nearby. "It was all he spoke about, until you put the fear into him." He turned his head enough to catch Sniper's eye. "Is this why?" he asked, sounding calm and curious, as if they were acquaintances just met for coffee.

"It's…something like that."

"Hm."

"What?"

"I merely find it interesting that you would go to these lengths for him."

"Don't tell me you're jealous?"

"Jealous? Of that RED embarrassment to the profession? Don't be ridiculous."

"So you'll give me a hand."

Spy did not reply until his eyes had slid along every inch of Sniper's body. "I would give you _both_ my hands."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"I do know it, but that does not make it any less amusing to watch you trying to think and not become…distracted."

"Spy, I—"

"Why do you care so much?"

"Dunno. He seems like a decent sort."

"A decent backstabbing spook, you mean?"

"Maybe yeah, that is what I mean." Damn, he'd gotten a rise out of him. One point to Spy.

"…Are _you_ jealous?"

"Me?" Sniper shifted. The chair creaked beneath him, loud in the thickness of the air. "Why would I be jealous?"

"Because he has something you do not." Spy shrugged, waving a hand. "Had something."

"If I was jealous, why would I want to help him get it back?"

"Because he is 'a decent sort.' Honorable, so you say, as much as anyone in our profession can be honorable. Because he has a permanence that you do not have. Perhaps jealousy is not the right word. Envy, then. You envy him what he had with her. …your silence answers for you, I think."

"I like what we have."

"Again, what we had." Sniper did not like the direction this conversation was taking, but Spy continued before he could head him off. "You are a terrible liar, Bushman. I suppose it was not a talent you needed to develop, as much as skinning rabbits and pissing in jars. No, do not grow offended. Stay."

"It's my van. You know I'm staying," he said, irritated, and irritated that BLU's Spy could push his buttons so easily.

"Do I? It has been months since you wanted me here. I had assumed you had lost interest." The tone was light, but Spy's eyes were watchful and Sniper could feel the tension creeping back into his shoulders.

It had been months since he and the BLU Spy had called off this…whatever it was. Whatever it had been. Neither of them had defined it out loud. Somewhere along the line, they'd agreed it was too risky. At least that's what Sniper had said, and Spy hadn't disagreed. He hadn't put up much fight at all, now that Sniper thought back.

Kinda like RED's Spy that way, actually.

"…more sort of…didn't know where to go next. With you."

"What a fascinating topic of conversation, do go on."

"Oi, don't get into a huff. I'm trying."

The sardonic smile softened. Not a lot, but enough. "I know. Go on."

"I liked what we had. I did. But you never stayed."

"You never asked."

"You never offered. Spy, let me finish!" Spy blinked, closed his mouth, gestured for Sniper to continue. "So I pulled back. I maybe pulled back too far. No, not maybe. I did. I know I did. Didn't know what else to do, and I'm good at being alone. Thought it wouldn't matter."

It was almost eerie, the lack of expression on the Spy's face. How did someone make themselves so blank? "But when he told me about, how'd he put it… 'feeling the absence more keenly than you ever expected.' He thought I didn't get it."

There, that was a flicker of something. Spy tried to cover it by looking away, reaching for another cigarette. "Are you trying to prove him _wrong_ by winning him back his woman's love? You are an idiot."

"Been established, yeah."

"I cannot believe I am attracted to you."

"Pretty poor taste you've got."

That won him a smile, a true one. It was more victory than Sniper had expected, or suspected he deserved. "She's got the wrong idea. If I can send her another packet, of her precious boy on the offensive side this time, maybe she'll reconsider."

"It is dangerous. You risk breaking contract."

"You broke contract coming out here."

"I cannot promise anything."

"But you'll see?"

Spy sighed. " _Oui,_ I will join you in your idiocy."

"Good." Sniper considered, flexing his fingers against his arm, then held out a hand. "Stay."

Spy watched him for a long moment, looking more hunted than Sniper had expected, then shook his head. "I should not. I risked a great deal coming here. I must return before anyone stirs. Our Scout is having trouble sleeping these days; I cannot imagine why." He pushed off from the wall and was at the door before Sniper could move. "Kill me today," he said over his shoulder. "Stop giving them reasons to wonder why you do not."

The door opened, letting in the cold desert air, and closed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter possibly?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting pays off in unexpected ways

As promised, the following day Sniper's scope found BLU's Spy. Not often, it was never often that he could catch the Spy more than a handful of times, but it was often enough. For the first time in weeks, he didn't camp in one nest but kept moving, setting up just long enough to take out one or two BLUs before slipping off somewhere new.

He told himself it was to regain the efficiency he'd lost in recent days, but the lack of visits from Spies of either color was a nice bonus.

The price of moving around was sacrificing stealth, and he'd woken up in Respawn far more often than usual. Reasoning that his short temper wouldn't endear him to any of his teammates, he left for his van as soon as the fighting was called off for the day. Less than ten minutes later, he fully expected the knock on the door to be Truckie, but instead it was a wisp of expensive tobacco smoke surrounding a barely there shimmer in the air.

He stepped back to let the BLU Spy inside and wrinkled his nose as the cloak briefly puffed his van full of blue smoke. "What happened to risking a great deal to come out here?"

"I will not be missed. Keeping you waiting was tempting, but…" Spy shrugged and reached into his suit coat, then flashed a cool smile as Sniper tensed automatically. "Good to see I still have that effect on you," he said as he brought out a small, fat manila envelope and handed it over.

"What's this?"

"What you asked for," Spy said, leaning against a wall, disinterest in every line of him.

"What, already?" Sniper opened the packet and pulled out the photos, a dozen of them featuring blood, guts, and the BLU Scout running, shooting, bashing in heads with a blood-spattered bat. He stared for a long time at a crystal clear image of the Scout in mid-laugh, standing over RED's Spy. He was still alive, sprawled on the ground, snow around him red and melting as he bled out from the scattergun wound in his stomach. They saw it all every day, Sniper thought, but somehow capturing it in photos like this…what they did was horrifying.

He shoved the packet back into the envelope and set it down. "Don't you want to study the rest?" Spy asked on an exhale of smoke. "I should hate to think they were not up to your standards."

"How'd you do that so fast?" he asked quietly. "There's one of me in there. The kid hasn't scored off me in weeks."

"I had one or two lying around."

Sniper swallowed against the iron ball settling into the pit of his stomach. "Did you send those photos to Scout's mother?"

" _Non._ " Spy was watching him steadily.

"But you took 'em."

" _Oui._ "

" _Why?_ "

"Do you believe my only job with BLU is to stick a knife into a few backs every day? What a waste that would be." Spy put out his cigarette and reached for his wrist, but Sniper grabbed his hand before he could cloak and disappear out of the conversation.

Unfortunately that was as far as he could get before his words deserted him. He wanted to ask why, and if the RED Spy was, well, spying like that too, and what other photos the BLU had (photos of them together? How would he have gotten them? But then how had he gotten these in the first place?) but none of his thoughts would line themselves up to be spoken. There was always a time, when they were together, when Spy transfixed him. There was no guarding against it, no explaining it, no knowing whether he loved it or hated it. That might've been the problem, in the end.

After a few motionless moments, Spy shook him off with that strange gentleness that always took Sniper by surprise. "You are welcome," he said. "I recommend writing her a letter. You will break contract, but—" a flash of a smile, too quick for Sniper to read it "—what is a broken contract or two between friends?"

"Not staying this time either, then."

Spy wavered, Sniper could see it, but just said, "Kill me tomorrow."

"I'll kill you every day."

"Good."

"Don't make it too easy."

"Don't insult me. It is never _easy._ " The lie lingered in the thick air until Spy pushed off the wall.

"I'm gonna keep asking."

Spy paused at the door. The leather of his gloves creaked as his fingers curled into tight fists. Sniper could remember the white knuckles, back when Spy would take his gloves off after arriving. "I am not surprised."

"You're gonna need to tell me to stop asking. I'm leaving it up to you."

"Ah. But of course. Cruelty comes in many forms."

"Spy—"

The door opened and Sniper stopped at the bottom step. The evening breeze had already dissipated the blue smoke and there wasn't a trace of a flicker.

He put it down to imagination and wishful thinking when he thought he smelled a whiff of expensive tobacco through the window as he sat at the table beneath a dim lamp, painstakingly writing a letter to a woman he'd never met on behalf of a man who wasn't speaking to him.

He'd written to his parents back home but he'd never written to anyone in America before. He wasn't certain how long the mail took to get back and forth here. Days went by without any changes and he put it out of his mind as best he could as his scope found a blue mask or a shimmer in the air at least once a day, every day. He'd promised. He was in a holding pattern, he knew, waiting for something with no real end in sight, but he'd long since gotten used to waiting.

Three weeks went by before something disturbed the pool of routine. Sniper woke up one morning and wandered into the mess for breakfast and knew the RED Spy's eyes were on him. They stayed on him as he poured himself a cup of coffee, decaf, and collected three slices of toast and two pieces of bacon from the pan. They stayed on him as he walked out again.

After work he waited. It was a nice night with a breeze that brought the smell of cigarette smoke to him before Spy was close enough to speak without yelling. He had an envelope in his hand. He held it out to Sniper, but Sniper just kept running the stone along the edge of his kukri. "What's it say?"

Spy pulled it back and tucked it into his suit coat. "It says many things, but to summarize, it says that she is still angry, with both of us now, the Scout as well. That we kept from her the nature of our employment. And that she wishes to talk."

Sniper set down the stone and tested the edge of the blade. "Sounds good, then."

"How?"

Not quite sharp enough. He picked up the stone again. "Think you're the only one with connections?"

"Why, then?"

That question was harder to answer. "It was something needed doing."

The silence spread between them into the desert. The rhythmic scrape of the stone became a part of the night. After lighting and finishing another cigarette, Spy reached into his jacket and withdrew another envelope, set it on the ground next to Sniper's boot. " _Merci._ " He cloaked.

Sniper was curious, but he finished what he was doing before sheathing the kukri and reaching for the envelope. Photos of him and BLU's Spy, neatly labeled on the back with dates and times and locations. At the bottom of the envelope, strips of negatives.

He was looking through them for the third time when the wind brought to him the smell of clove cigarettes.


End file.
